A Christmas Salad!

I don’t think this is intentionally a Christmas salad but it’s red, green and white and those to me are Christmas colors so I shall dub this the Christmas salad. My husband has renamed it the “Yum” salad and gives it a 10 out of 10. He actually had two helpings of it and although he does eat his veggies, he’s not a second helping veggies sort of person. So I was really surprised.

This recipe requires slow-roast tomatoes or “Moonblush” tomatoes as Nigella calls them. According to the recipe, you put the tomatoes in a really hot oven and then immediately turn it off and let it sit overnight or all day. I put the tomatoes in the oven in the morning and found I had to turn the oven back on again for about 10 minutes later on in the day cause they weren’t quite roasted enough. So I would keep an eye on them to get the right roasted consistency.

Moonblush Tomatoes
Source: “Nigella Express” by Nigella Lawson. Published by Chatto & Windus 2007.

Ingredients:

1 lb (about 24) of cherry or other baby tomatoes
2 teaspoons Maldon salt or 1 teaspoon of table salt
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the tomatoes in half and sit them out cut side up in an ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar, thyme and olive oil.

Put them in the oven, and immediately turn it off. Leave the tomatoes in the oven overnight or for a day without opening the door.

Slow-roast Tomatoes, Goat’s Cheese and Mint Salad
Source: “Nigella Express” by Nigella Lawson. Published by Chatto & Windus 2007.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb rocket or spinach salad
7 ounces of soft goat’s cheese
1 batch of moonblush tomatoes
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint (I omitted this as I didn’t have any.)

Directions:

Arrange the salad leaves in a large dish and then scoop out spoonfuls of the soft goat’s cheese and dollop it here and there.

Add the cooked-down, intensely red moonblush tomato halves.

In the same dish the tomatoes have been cooking in, whisk together the lemon juice and oil and pour over the salad.

Scatter with the chopped mint.

Serves 8

Soup and a Sandwich

So like I said before, soup is one of all time favorite things to eat and french onion soup is waaaay up there on my favorite kinds of soup. I found a recipe on Allrecipes for it and modified it a bit. I used gruyere and mozzarella but you can also use Swiss cheese or Provolone. This is actually the first time I made it so I think there is still room for improvement. But it still came out quite good!

French Onion Soup
Source: Allrecipes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of butter
3 onions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon of white sugar
1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups of beef broth
2 cups of chicken broth
1/4 cup of red wine
1 bay leaf
1 french baguette
4 ounces of gruyere cheese, shredded
4 ounces of mozzarella cheese, shredded
salt and pepper, to taste

Direction:

Melt butter or margarine in a 4 quart saucepan. Stir in sugar. Cook onions over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

Stir in flour until well blended with the onions and pan juices. Add water, wine, and beef broth; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low. Cover soup, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Cut four 1 inch thick slices of bread from the loaf. Toast the bread slices at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) just until browned, about 10 minutes. Reserve the remaining bread to serve with the soup.

Ladle soup into four 12 ounce, oven-safe bowls. Place 1 slice toasted bread on top of the soup in each bowl. Fold Swiss cheese slices, and fit onto toasted bread slices. Place soup bowls on a cookie sheet for easier handling.

Bake at 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) for 10 minutes, or just until cheese is melted

And what could be better than having soup all on its own, than having soup with a sandwich! I decided to make paninis with the leftover gruyere, some gammon ham and tomatoes. But you can fill paninis with most combinations of meat, cheese or veggies. I used my George Foreman grill but you can use a regular grill or grill pan.

Ham, Cheese and Tomato Panini
Source: Myself

Ingredients:

2 ciabatta rolls
1 tomato, sliced
2 pieces of gammon ham
4 ounces of sliced or shredded gruyere cheese
tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Preheat grill to medium heat. Slice ciabatta rolls in half. Arrange ham, 2 or 3 tomato slices and cheese onto the sandwich. Brush bottom and top of sandwich with olive oil. If using a grill pan, grill on both sides for a few minutes each until cheese has melted. If using a George Foreman, grill for about 4 minutes.